Pimp my bike: Detroit's custom cycles – in pictures

‘We take rusty old junk and we put love into it.’ The old Motor City has a unique style in bicycles these days: from fat wheels and fake fuel tanks to stretched cycles with powerful sound systems – and even a family-sized BBQ

Detroit’s custom bike scene developed alongside
Slow Roll, a weekly cycle ride started in 2010 by Jason Hall and Mike MacKool. Now upwards of 2,000 people turn up each Monday to cruise a different part of the city. The week I go the crowd seems evenly split between black and white, male and female, city and suburbs. It’s the most inclusive cycle event I’ve ever witnessed

‘People come from the suburbs and it opens their minds,’ says Todd Scott of the Detroit Greenways Coalition (not pictured). ‘It’s a reintroduction to Detroit. They visit these areas they’d be scared to go to otherwise. They have conversations, make eye contact … people come out of their houses and take photos … It makes the city far more human’

Ashia of the D-Town Riders: ‘You could be riding next to a millionaire or next to a homeless person, you just don’t know.’ Ashia – who has personalised her bike with stuffed toys and a professional red-to-black fade paint job – says she feels much safer riding the streets as part of a club. ‘It’s positive – and God knows in Detroit, we need positive things like this’

‘King’ Wayne of East Side Riders (not pictured) is there on a stretched bike with fat wheels. He shows off photos of his most outrageous creation on his phone: a four-wheeled bike complete with working 32-inch TV, family-size BBQ grill … and obligatory sound system

Bo (pictured) is president and co-founder of Grown Men On Bikes (GMOB), one of the oldest groups at Slow Roll. Bo spent $1,300 getting a one-off low-rider custom bike build – but that’s just the start. ‘Once I go back in it’s going to get big,’ he says. ‘I’m going to get a custom seat, wheels, paint …’ The finished bike could cost around $3,000 – but would still be far cheaper than pimping a car. ‘This is much better. It’s a community. We party’

‘We just take old rusty junk and we rebuild it, personalise it how we like. We just put love into it,’ says Charles Ferdin of Down River Rivers (not pictured). Heavy beats boom from the sound system built into the box on the back of his trike – an old steel frame from 1967 which he has refurbished and given a powder-coated paint job